


I’m Just A Sad Song

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dark Ben Solo, Kylo Ren Backstory, M/M, Past Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Pre-Canon, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Protective Ben Solo, Sad Ben Solo, Soft Ben Solo, The Origins Of Kylo Ren’s Mask, but he’s not Kylo Ren yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-10 21:03:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: The origins of Kylo Ren’s first mask.





	I’m Just A Sad Song

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Metal
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: Title taken from “Sad Song” by We The Kings ft. Elena Coats. Kind of Darkpilot-ish, that song.

The durasteel is already perfectly laid out for Ben to mold into whatever he wants. All he has to do is actually form it. He has to pound it into whatever shape he wants. There are many shapes for his mask that he has in mind, many things he can envisage. The other Knights of Ren have thought about making their masks in the shape of a skull, or a lizard’s face without eyes. Ben doesn’t know what he’ll form from good as nothing.   
  
Ben doesn’t know where to start, actually.   
  
He remembers the face of the figure in his nightmares — not so much the face as much as the mask. The almost birdlike visage, with those cold, dead eyes and strange structure. It doesn’t really call to mind Vader’s mask as much as the structure of the Sith Lord Revan’s mask.   
  
Either way, he supposes, even as he gets to work with his tools, constructing and carving, he supposes that he was never really good at being a Jedi. He tried — but then again, do or do not, there is no try. Right? After all this time, he failed. He couldn’t fit into the role that his mother and uncle — Leia and Luke — tried to shove him into. He couldn’t be who they wanted him to be.   
  
Maybe kriff who they wanted him to be, really. Even that anger seems to dance through his veins as he continues building the mask — he thinks of Jakku birds pecking away at bits of scrap in the wastelands as he constructs. He thinks of Poe —  
  
He stops. He feels like he’s been burned somehow.   
  
Snoke can never know. But without Poe, without him — with so many miles between them, Poe on Yavin and Ben on the Supremacy in the Unknown Regions, Ben can’t help but feel like he’s on the receiving end of losing a limb. Something — or rather, someone — that should be there, but isn’t.   
  
It was for his own good, Ben thinks. It was for the best. It doesn’t make the difference feel any less...pronounced, really.   
  
Without Poe —  
  
It would be easy to take his work-in-progress and smash it against the wall. Ben almost wants to. Instead, he forces and crafts, anything to get rid of the feelings that he wants to run away from.   
  
He's still working at it. He can add little details here and there — the ridges above the eyes. He’s working, carving, and in the midst of his mourning, he can feel a sense of maybe, just maybe, he was meant to be that way the whole time.   
  
And then he finishes. He looks at his new creation. Snoke may think it’s ridiculous, but to Ben, it’s a symbol. It’s who he was meant to be. His place in all this. He failed at being a Jedi. He won’t fail at who he is now.   
  
He slips it over his head, and it feels, almost, like a cage for his eyes. It’s narrowed. It’s constricted. He looks around, and idly wonders if his grandfather had to adjust to something like that. If he had to even consider feeling caged and restricted...  
  
It’s better that his enemies see the symbol. Not the man beneath. They’ll be right to fear him, at least in that respect. And Poe...  
  
It’s better off, truly better off, that Poe doesn’t see what he’s become. Doesn’t realize that the face of a monster is his former best friend — the man who could have, freely, loved him once upon a time.   
  
Ben didn’t say that he loved Poe before he left. Not in so many words. He didn’t tell the full truth. Perhaps he was too scared, in a way. Perhaps it would have hurt them both.   
  
Either way, it’s one of those things that he leaves unsaid. Leaves unsaid, while keeping a pilot named Poe Dameron hidden in his heart underneath layers of ice.   
  
People with icy hearts survive longer, Snoke had said. Better to be doing the hurting than getting hurt.   
  
***  
  
“What in the name of the stars are you even wearing?”  
  
Ben won’t deny it. His master’s words do sting. Nonetheless, he says, “It’s a mask.” The words come out strange, muffled — he wishes he had a more powerful voice, perhaps like Grandfather’s. A voice to command. “Because...I am a symbol. Of the First Order.”  
  
Snoke taps his chin. He seems to be thinking. “Your point is...sensible,” he says. “Ben Solo was weak and foolish like his father, so you destroyed him.”  
  
“Yes.” There is no other way to put it, truly.   
  
“So you made a representation of it,” Snoke says. “I suppose that makes more sense now.”  
  
“Yes."  
  
“I see! Well done, my apprentice.”  
  
Praise from Snoke should feel encouraging, even good. It feels bittersweet at best.   
  
“Thank you, Supreme Leader,” Ben says. And deep within the part of him that Snoke can’t reach, buried beneath layers of ice like Hoth’s surface, he mourns for Poe Dameron, and what might be. He doesn’t know how their paths will cross again.   
  
He only knows that no matter what happens, he’ll keep that part of him safe — where even Snoke can’t reach.


End file.
